Book Review: Getting to the Very Important Top Officer

Book Review by Mike Evans

Getting to VITO by Anthony Parinello

John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-67519-9

This book sets out to be a practical guide for a sales person who is selling a product or service valuable enough to justify face to face sales calls. The emphasis is on Information Technology sales.

VITO is Tony Parinello's acronym for the Very Important Top Officer. His approach is to change the rules of engagement. His concept is that the sales person should start by selling to the top man, the approver, to change perceptions of the transaction, rather than working through recommenders, influencers and decision makers. The book suggests that VITOs are risk averse, and that key selling activities should communicate that your solution reduces VITO's risk.

The book is based on Tony Parinello's experience as a trainer since the early 90's and claims to be based on feedback from hundreds of real sales situations. It is very pragmatic, in that it details tactics for each stage of a sale, in ten steps, to the close.

Personally, I found the positive thinking cum southern preacher's exhortation style a significant barrier. Despite the way that put me off, I stuck with the text. I then found the psychological analysis of the various players' motivations, the detailed actions to take, and the tactical advice was sound.

There are two serious omissions. There are no indications about how marketing activities would facilitate selling. Also, the book is very light on those steps that establish that the sales person's offer meets the suspect's need - it does not cover how a sales person would establish a value proposition.

In most cases, I rather doubt that VITO is the right place to start selling, though this book would be useful if for some reason you do need to talk to VITO. For example, if your company is trying to break into an account with an established supplier in place and the normal selection criteria and processes would leave you with negligible chances of success. In this case, provided that the rules permit, getting to a VITO before responding to the Request For Quote, could be a way in.

However, on the whole my experience is that if there is a good reason to talk to VITO then they see that too and setting that up is not a big problem. On the whole I therefore can't recommend this book.